A/N: Well, here's the last chapter. Do not worry, though: the sequel's coming soon! I also finished my novel! I really appreciate all the support and lovely reviews I've received, so here are some reviewer responses!
Miss Piratess: Yes, very bad. I really want to thank you for being sucha wonderful reader and reviewer, as well as an amazing writer. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
zeldaisthebest: I'm very glad you enjoyed it, and I thank you for being such a consistent reviewer throughout all this. Thanks!
Xiria: I'm glad you got an account, and I hope you start posting things soon! You're a lovely reviewer, and I thank you very much.
Ganheim: I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I hope you enjoy this one. I appreciate the attempted critique. I intend to read your story as soon as I get some free time, but I've been very busy lately. I'm doing a lot of schoolwork, as well as studying for standardized testing. I appreciate your patience. I'm glad you liked DaD, because it was fun to write, as well as my first fanfic. Happy writing, and thank you!
Aranel flew toward Hyrule Castle Town at breakneck speed. Scarily enough, the Kokiri were keeping up. The sun had begun to rise. With a sudden flash of unrestrained horror, Ganondorf grabbed Aranel's neck and screamed, "Go faster!"
"I can't!" Aranel replied, flapping his jet-black wings rapidly.
Link got an idea. "Put me down!"
"Are you crazy?" screeched Cassandra. "They'll kill you!"
"No, they won't! I'm the Hero of Time!"
Grudgingly, Aranel lowered Link to the ground. "We'll meet you at the Temple, all right?" he called.
"Sounds good!" Link called back confidently. He then stuck out his hand and cried, "Halt!"
The Kokiri gave no sign that they would relent, or if they'd even heard him. Probably ignoring him, they continued to run to the city. Link swallowed hard. The Kokiri continued their onward trek, their torches dimming in the sun's quickly strengthening light. They shouted raucously, more like a raging band of natives than anything else.
Link let his arms fall to his sides.
"Good luck!" called Aranel, flying off in the direction of the Temple of Time. "Remember to meet us there!"
Link mouthed a wordless plea. It went unanswered. He turned and looked at the Kokiri. He felt his heart beat faster, pounding against his chest as if trying to break free.
His breaths quickened –
His eyes widened –
His hands crept to his cheeks –
And he gave a high-pitched, earsplitting scream of complete and utter terror.
"Open the gate!" he shrieked. "Lower the drawbridge!"
"What?" asked a sleepy guard from the top of the wall, his sword gripped lazily in hand and a quiver of arrows on his back.
"Open the gate!"
"Oh, sure!" The guard hurriedly cranked the lever that lowered the drawbridge.
It landed on Link.
"Do you think Link will be all right?" asked Quinn asked, looking back in an attempt to see the hero.
"Oh, he'll be fine," Lute said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt.
"But how are we going to get into the Sacred Realm if he's out there?" Cassandra asked. "We need the Master Sword, and guess what? He has it."
Aranel suddenly felt embarrassed. "I forgot about that."
"Will we go back for him?"
Aranel shook his head. "He'll make it."
"He'd better, because if this wild-goose chase doesn't end here, he won't last much longer," huffed the sorceress. "And believe me, the Kokiri won't be the ones to take him out."
Falen looked genuinely scared. "I believe it."
Link pulled himself out from the moat under the drawbridge.
"Sorry, sir!" called the guard.
"No…problem…" whimpered Link, attempting to sit up on the shore. The attempt was unsuccessful. He just flopped onto his back in front of the drawbridge.
Unfortunately, that was when the Kokiri decided to run across it – and of course, run over him, as well.
Aranel landed outside the Temple of Time, and the remaining rescuers hastily slid off his back and inside.
Quinn set the Zora's Sapphire gently onto the altar, and it rose up slightly to join the other two Spiritual Stones. The Door of Time slid up, and the group ran inside, but found themselves stumped when they remembered that the only way into the Sacred Realm was to replace the Master Sword in the Pedestal of Time. They took out the replacement sword that Daphnes had rigged up, but after that, all they could do was wait.
"I wish Link would hurry up," Lute muttered, crossing his arms and leaning against the altar.
And so they waited.
Link, on the other hand, wasn't doing too well. He was struggling to his knees, trying to crawl across the drawbridge.
"Uh…do you want help, sir?" asked the guard.
Trying very hard to keep from snarling, Link looked up at him. "You've done enough, thank you."
The guard hesitated. "Are you sure?"
Link grimaced and dropped his head. "Quite sure."
"Absolutely sure?"
Link sighed. "Leave me alone. Please. I don't want to hurt you."
"Okay."
"Thank you."
There was silence. Link continued to crawl along the drawbridge. The Kokiri had begun to pillage the city, flinging their torches at houses and shouting insane war cries. The Hylians didn't do much to stop them. They were used to this sort of thing happening. The Kokiri would get bored and go home soon. Or at least, they hoped they would.
Link had gotten across the drawbridge and almost made it to his feet when a familiar voice called, "Are you sure you don't want help?"
Link stood up, took out his boomerang, and looked at the guard. "Sir, would you like to see my boomerang?" he asked sweetly.
The guard, who was slightly dense, said, "Sure! I mean, anything that belongs to the Hero of Time has to be – "
Link didn't find out what it had to be, because the boomerang had just nailed the side of the guard's helmet, and he slumped against the battlement, unconscious.
Link headed off through the crowd of raging Kokiri and Hylian onlookers toward the Temple of Time.
"Well, it's about time you showed up!" Cassandra cried as Link stumbled into the gigantic stone building.
"I had a little trouble getting here," he muttered, his eyes glinting with anger.
"Never mind that," she said, waving off his comments. "We need the Master Sword."
"Never mind that?" Link screeched in disbelief. "Never mind that! I was just crushed by a herd of rampaging Kokiri, crushed by a drawbridge, forced to make my way through a town on the brink of destruction, then berated for being late, and you say, 'Never mind that'!" His expression looked fit to kill. He glared at her a moment longer, then sat down, crossed his arms stubbornly, and said, "I'm not moving."
"That's fine," she told him. "Just give us the sword, and you can stay here."
Link shook his head. "It won't work," he said.
She blinked. "What do you mean? As long as the sword is put in and then taken out of the Pedestal…"
"Ah, but there's one little tiny detail you've overlooked," he informed her. "I'm the only one who can set the sword in its place."
"Oh, come on!" cried Ganondorf. "Just put it in and let us go ahead!"
Link stuck his nose in the air defiantly and grabbed the hilt of the Master Sword, which was strapped to his back.
"How about we play for it?" suggested Cassandra. "Rock, paper, scissors. Best out of five hundred."
Link, always ready for a challenge, grinned. "You're on," he said.
And so, the competition began. Day turned to night, the sounds of shouting and destruction from outside ceased. Aranel stuck his head in at sunset, wondering what was taking so long. When he saw Cassandra and Link sitting there chanting and shaking their fists into different shapes, Falen contentedly keeping score, he glared pointedly at Lute.
The prince explained the predicament. When he finished, Aranel rolled his eyes, shook his head and pulled it back through the doorway.
Finally, the five hundredth game was won.
"Ha, ha! I win! So there, Hero of Time!" Cassandra crowed, jumping up and doing a jig.
"You won by two, woman! Two!" Link growled back.
Cassandra bent over triumphantly with her hands on her hips. "I still won. Now get up."
Grudgingly, the hero set the Master Sword in the Pedestal, then pulled it out again. There was a whirl of light, and somehow or other, they were all suddenly standing on the middle pedestal in the Sacred Realm.
They were just in time to see Rauru fling Zelda off the edge.
"NO!" they all screamed in unison.
Rauru, just noticing that they were there, waved his handless sleeves in the air. "It's not what it looks like!" he cried.
Just then, Zelda landed on top of him.
"See?" he wheezed.
"I found out about the water!" she cried happily. She was still in her nightgown, but her hair was mussed, and her clothes were slightly more dirty than they'd been the night before.
"Oh, really?" Rauru asked, turning his attention to her.
"Yep," she nodded victoriously. "See that water pouring from the ceiling?"
Rauru nodded.
"That's it," she said. "It falls, and it just keeps falling and falling and falling…" She stood up. "So we figured it out."
"What is going on here?" demanded Quinn.
"We were trying to figure out where the water goes," Zelda said, as if that was a natural thing for a person to do with their kidnapper.
"I see," Lute said. "Well, we're going to take you home now, Princess."
"I don't think so!" Rauru said angrily.
"Link!" Zelda cried happily. She opened her arms wide and ran toward him.
"Zelda!" he cried in return. When she reached him, the clasped hands and did a strange sort of dance.
"Why did you kidnap her?" asked Cassandra. Everyone was trying to ignore the dancing fiancées. It wasn't easy.
"I was bored. Everyone forgot about me, and I wanted some recognition!" he said defensively. "I was lonely."
Ganondorf looked thoughtful. "Do you have a pad and pen?" he asked.
"Sure," Rauru said, producing the items from inside his sleeves. "What do you need them for?"
"I'm going to give you some psychiatric therapy, my friend."
"Really?"
"Really."
Rauru hopped for joy. "I won't be alone anymore!"
He and Ganondorf sat down on the middle pedestal and started.
"Hey, we have to get home!" Falen protested.
"Oh, yes. Of course, of course." Rauru waved his hand, and in a matter of seconds, they were once again standing in the Temple of Time, minus Ganondorf but plus Zelda.
They made their way through the smoking ruins of Hyrule Castle Town, Aranel at their heels. By the time they got to the castle, Falen had been forced to carry Zelda, as she'd fallen asleep. ("It's your fault we went through all this, anyway," Quinn had pointed out.)
The next morning Lute and Cassandra had climbed on Aranel and were on their way home, leaving a very angry Daphnes behind.
"You do know you're getting it easy," Impa said as they prepared to leave.
"Boy, do I ever," Lute replied.
Impa sighed. "Goodbye, then. Take care of yourselves!"
"We will!" Cassandra called down as Aranel started to rise.
"At least this all finished," Lute sighed.
"Until next time," Aranel grinned.
"Don't even insinuate that!" cried Cassandra.
The dragon had to keep from shrugging. "You never know."
Thus ends Book Two of the Alliance Trilogy.
